


Gifts

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, alludes to conversion therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27228985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Radar has strict rules for how he uses his gift. He breaks them to help his best friend and tells Max something about Charles.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Gifts

Inside Klinger’s tent, two good friends were enjoying a rare moment of downtime. Klinger was trying out a new eye palette and Radar was acting as fashion advisory - vetoing those shoes and that hat, okaying that belt. He liked watching Max’s mad transformations… even if he didn’t agree with the underlying cause that had him working to “get gussied up” as Radar’s mom would have said. 

Seeing their shadows on the tent flap - O’Reilly’s made distinct because of the thick glasses, Winchester halted outside. He heard Max’s voice, low and with its own sort of unique, happy musicality, and ignored what it did to his chest, his abdomen. “Whatcha frowning for, kid?” 

Radar chose not to remind him of the bright white-silver gift that lived in his head. Instead, he asked, “I just… you sure this is good for you? This thing with the Major? He’s… there’s a lot of anger there, Klinger.”

It made Winchester angry, in fact, just to hear this uttered - but O’Reilly was…  _ concerned _ ? 

_ You think I would visit my anger on his warm flesh _ ? _! _

How low of an opinion had he earned for himself in so little time? Charles hadn’t been beloved at Tokyo or Boston General- but no one had ever speculated that he carried  _ violence  _ in his hands! 

_ It is merely because they are common and low class _ , he tried to assure himself.  _ They can only imagine from their own experience _ . Certainly, he sometimes used his greater strength and height to lift Klinger up, but he never  _ hurt _ him. 

Then he heard Max laugh. The sound had many associations for him now; he had heard it undergird the sound of thunder as they hid in the broken down ambulance. He often heard it sparkling through the camp as Klinger delivered the mail on days when O’Reilly was occupied elsewhere. “You think? No! I mean he gets what he came for I guess, orders me around a little, but he’s a  _ doctor _ , Radar. He doesn’t hurt me.”

It was not the most flattering assessment Winchester had ever heard of his skills as a bedmate… not that there had been many partners to flatter or to chide. But Klinger sounded like he was defending him, anyway. It was probably more than he deserved, all things considered. Klinger was very young and he’d probably had no right asking him to be… whatever he was. 

“Not even when he leaves?”

Inside the tent, there was the silence of an indrawn breath. Outside, Winchester felt his heart pound. 

“Nah,” Klinger said at last, sounding a bit… weary? Regretful? “I knew what I was signing on for. He’s outta my league.”

“You could be with someone who wasn’t ashamed of you,” Radar countered, helping him secure bobby pins that kept wanting to escape. Neither Klinger nor O’Reilly had any way of knowing it, but Charles kept the ones that fell from his dark hair when he was with him like tiny talismans. He sometimes pinned one to his pocket and touched it in moments of distress. He never let himself think about why. 

“No I couldn’t, kid,” Klinger said then. “Not and be myself. The Major… he doesn’t care how I dress because he’s never gonna be seen with me anyway.”

Charles actually flinched. They had not set out to do it, perhaps, these non-comms, but they were really doing a number on him. 

“But I don’t think he’s ashamed of me,” Klinger went on, voice somewhat muffled as he got in or out of something. “Of himself, yeah, and that’s too bad, really.”

_ I should go _ . In the space of three minutes, Winchester had unexpectedly learned:

(1) Klinger apparently put a lot of care into getting ready for their nights together 

(2) Radar’s gift for insight was spookier than he’d ever imagined 

(3) these casual encounters of theirs were maybe not that casual for Max 

And it just got worse. 

In a small voice - a boy’s voice - Radar said, “I think they did something bad to him.”

“Who’s they?” Klinger demanded. “What do you mean? Hey - you’re doing that thing you do, huh?”

“I shouldn’t,” Radar admitted. He never passed on what he knew about one individual to anyone else. But Radar couldn’t just see minds or sense events; he could see the way souls tangled up, too. Klinger’s had gone fireworks and burnt cherry pie filling bubbling over on a stovetop the moment Winchester had arrived and had been simmering and glittering ever since. If anyone could  _ help _ Winchester, it was Max. Didn’t he deserve the chance to try? 

“They… look - you’re gonna trust me, right?”

“Don’t I always? Nobody knows about Winchester but you.”

_ That _ was a relief to the listening Major, anyway. 

“Yeah,” Radar admitted. “I just… the Captains still make fun sometimes. I know they’re dealing with their own stuff an’ all” (Talk about tangled up souls!) “But …” 

Winchester saw the shadows shift, saw Max rest a hand on O’Reilly’s shoulder. “Hey, I believe in you. Whatever you tell me. Gospel truth, just like if it was Father Mulcahy.”

“You’re not gonna like it.”

“What’s new in this dump?”

“I mean, you’re really not. You say what you want about just having fun with him, Klinger, but we both know why you went to him.”

Went? O’Reilly knew about that? 

The memory opened around him and enfolded him like a cloak. Klinger had been in OR that night, but he must have changed. Winchester had thought of Ophelia drowning with her flowers, their colors gone glassy underwater. He’d thought of Eliot and his hyacinth girl. He’d looked on Maxwell Klinger and thought nothing but poetry, and it hadn’t seemed a bit wrong. He’d been dressed in gender-appropriate clothing for once, but the scarf around his throat had been the color of fresh blooms dewed with rain water. That color had been kind to some part of Charles that this terrible place had yet failed to kill. 

He closed his eyes tight, saw Klinger walking out of the rain with the smell of cold lilacs in his dark hair and water in his skin.  _ A cold smell… precious, violets in glass…  _ They had both known it was dangerous, but Max had just shed his damp things and walked over - naked - to claim his mouth. Charles had kept him close all night; even when Pierce and Hunnicutt returned they hadn’t realized he was there, a treat tucked against his side. 

Klinger was as guileless with O’Reilly as he was with him, Charles heard then, saying, “I went because his eyes hurt. I wanted to know if I could change ‘em... even a little.”

“You did good, Klinger. It was a good wish.”

_ It was _ . Charles wouldn’t take that from him - not even in thought. 

“You’re gonna tell me why it didn’t work, huh?”

“Why it didn’t work  _ all the way _ .”

Charles sighed audibly. O’Reilly couldn’t know  _ that _ . His own beloved baby sister didn’t know. 

But he did. 

Now, so did Max. 

***

It was a cowardly tactic, but it was easy enough to switch shifts that night - to entirely avoid seeing Maxwell in his finery. Charles felt bad about letting his hard work go to waste (he loved the curls Max put in with his fingers alone) but he couldn’t face him until he worked this out in his mind. Max knew. 

Max  _ knew _ . 

Charles could keep him quiet when they were together. Max practically went limp under his mouth; Charles had never been with anyone that seemed to need kissed as much as Maxwell. 

In public… he supposed he could bribe the pretty thing if it came to that, distasteful (so much like the hated father who had ordered him “fixed” in the first place) as such a course was. What he was really afraid of, however, was seeing pity in Max’s dark eyes. The love he now realized he’d been seeing (love he’d mislabeled as desire) was difficult enough to bear. 

And even though he didn’t have the young man’s gift, Charles kept thinking of what Walter knew and had not said. “You say what you want about just having fun with him, Klinger, but we both know why you went to him.”  _ You love him _ . Those had been the missing words at the end of the sentence. They were words missing too long from his life. Max had never said them to him, either, not aloud. But hadn’t they been there in his hands? In his eyes? 

How foolish had he been, to think Max could touch him that way without love? 

_ Alright, Winchester. Now you know. You did not ask to, but you  _ **_know_ ** _. So what are you going to do about it?  _

***

“Hiya, Major.”

Four syllables. Four syllables and his heart trembled at the sound of his voice. 

“I missed you the other night.”

There was no hint of censure. Max had told Radar that he knew the score; he never pressed for more than what Charles offered. He just opened his arms. He did so now, beckoning Charles to him. 

“I’d of dressed nicer if I knew you were coming.”

Charles hid his face in his neck. “You are always lovely, Max.”

He felt the younger man tense. He hadn’t thought about it before, but it seemed he hadn’t exactly been showering Maxwell with praise. He’d thought Max would take touches as praise, of course - Max  _ loved  _ to be touched - that he’d hear adoration in his tone. But, then, maybe Max thought it counterfeited? Produced to inspire a reaction? 

“Lovely and so very good to me.”

Max cuddled against him. Charles had not previously allowed much in the way of snuggling. Having received permission, he stroked the taller man’s neck until Charles dropped his head. Klinger massaged his shoulders, one hand slipping under his shirt to warm itself against his skin. “Major, baby, can I say somethin’?”

“Mm-hmm.” Charles was barely listening; his mind was busy wondering how he had ever missed Max’s feelings. His touches were so very tender. Why hadn’t he allowed this? Encouraged it? 

“I just wanna say one thing and then we can forget it forever if you want. I never fired a gun here and I don’t wanna, but if someone tried to hurt you, I’d stop them.” He waited a beat, summoning his courage, looking at the man he loved with dark eyes. “And if there was some place that hurt you… I’d wanna burn it down.”

No one had ever given Charles Emerson Winchester III a revenge fantasy. 

He allowed himself to imagine it - buying that hated property, passing Maxwell a book of matches. His Corporal would probably light a cigar first and they’d watch it all crumble into hot ash, the heat of it radiating in a wide band that couldn’t touch them.  _ And no one would ever walk down those halls to be hurt again.  _

Maybe he could do it. 

Not with matches, but money. 

It was a strange cause, but he knew investors. What if they helped him to snap up such places, forcing them out? What if no one would sell or rent to them in Boston or London or New York unless they swore off the sort of things they’d done to him? 

There would be rumors, of course. Especially with Max under his roof. But money turned madness into eccentricity like a wand being waved. Maybe… maybe they really could be burned down - legally, too. Maybe he could even call on Pierce’s friend Sidney Freeman to see if he and some other psychiatrists might disavow the work being done in such “hospitals.” 

“I am quite alright, Max. Now.” 

“You always were, Charles. Wish somebody had been telling you so all along.”

He had imagined it would be horrible- having someone know these old and ugly truths. In fact, it was rather sweet, especially since Max was as guileless as ever. His eyes were naked in their regard.“I would not have listened, I think, unless that someone were you.” He tipped his head back to kiss him, closed his eyes to live inside the kiss. When he drew back, he added, “Would you accept such a task in future?” 

Klinger’s eyes filled with shooting stars it seemed - but there was doubt mixed in with the wonder. “I could get you references and everything, Major, to do that job. I just… I gotta know - for how long?” 

“Hmmm.” Charles hummed into his hair, thought about seeing the shine of it on a pillow in his bedroom in Boston. “How about always, my love?”

Klinger’s lashes beat so hard - blinking in confusion - that Charles felt worried for a second. Then he laughed. 

“Might I be allowed, ah, in on the joke?”

“Oh, just thinkin’ about Radar, Major. He couldn’t have told me  _ this _ might happen?”

“I doubt very much he would have wanted to take from what I hope I am correct in interpreting as your present happiness. You are shaking, Max.” 

“Yeah. Proposals do that to me. Weddings, too.”

“Ah. I shall be quite sure to anchor you at ours.” 

Max could see it - that too tall form elegant in black, a hand at his waist… Huh! Maybe Radar was rubbing off on him… 

Across the camp, Walter O’Reilly sighed with relief. Everything with his friend was going to turn out just fine. If it had meant breaking his own rules for his gift - just a little - well, he thought that might be just fine. 

End! 

  
  
  



End file.
